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Rigoletto de Verdi – Paraphrase de Concert, S434

Introduction

The operas of Verdi supplied Liszt with a good many ideas for operatic fantasies, and the Paraphrases de concert on Ernani, Il Trovatore and Rigoletto are amongst Liszt’s finest. They were issued as a set, although the publisher managed not to print them in Liszt’s specified order, which is that observed here. Liszt had already produced another fantasy on themes from Ernani which includes some similar material, but he declined to publish it and reworked part of it into the piece recorded here. By calling these three pieces paraphrases, rather than fantasies or transcriptions, Liszt intends to convey the idea of taking a specific section of an opera, presenting it in highly pianistic terms whilst maintaining the general lines of the original. So the Ernani paraphrase confines itself to the finale of Act III (the King of Spain’s aria and chorus at Charlemagne’s tomb), the Trovatore paraphrase is upon the Act IV duet between Leonora and the condemned Manrico, with the accompanying chorus singing the Miserere (which is distantly derived from the opening of Allegri’s Miserere), and the justly famous Rigoletto paraphrase is simply a stunning re-creation of the quartet between Rigoletto, Gilda, the Duke and Maddalena in Act IV.

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